


These Are Your Words

by migratoryslashfan



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Hand Jobs, M/M, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-06
Updated: 2015-03-06
Packaged: 2018-03-15 22:27:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3464342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/migratoryslashfan/pseuds/migratoryslashfan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>soul·mark</b><br/>/sōlˌmärk/<br/><i>noun</i><br/>1. one of a kind of marking on the skin, as with a birthmark, indicating a specific phrase that will be spoken to the mark's carrier by a soulmate, or bondmate, in the future. Some individuals experience multiple soulmarks, while others have none.<br/><i>synonyms:</i> bondmark, imprintation, lover's scratch, matemark <i>(archaic)</i>, barcode <i>(slang)</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	These Are Your Words

**Author's Note:**

> Loosely inspired by [this gif set](http://prettiestcaptain.tumblr.com/post/90561684769/peter-hale-meme-favourite-otp-you-turn-into-a) by [prettiestcaptain](http://prettiestcaptain.tumblr.com/)

Stiles sat in the shower, hot water scalding him as it draped his back and shoulders. He hugged his knees to his chest, bracing himself under the spray, hoping like hell the heat would burn the mark from his flesh.

He'd felt the mark when it bristled under his skin for the first time, a few days before the prom. When he'd seen it on his back in the bathroom mirror, he gawked at the strange words. He knew Lydia was only going to prom with him because she'd basically been bribed into it, so he couldn't imagine the words coming from her mouth, at least not anytime soon. Still, he'd allowed himself to believe that they were _her_ words, just far far into the future words that he'd have to wait probably years to hear. He was okay with that. What was another year or two (or three, really) when he'd already waited ten? For Lydia, he would have waited his whole life.

Turned out, he did hear those words on prom night. They just weren't from Lydia.

A sharp pounding on the bathroom door jerked Stiles' attention from his replaying the night's events - setting Peter on fire, watching Derek assume the alpha power, and then seeing Kate Argent's dead body inside the burnt-out husk of the Hale house. So much nightmare fuel.

_"Stiles? Everything all right in there?"_

"Yeah," Stiles called back. How the hell long had he been in there anyway?

_"Planning on saving some of that water for the rest of California?"_

Stiles immediately reached behind him, shutting the water off. He scrubbed the excess droplets from his face but he didn't stand.

_"Stiles?"_

"What, Dad?"

_"I'm going out to grab some food. You hungry?"_

"Um."

Stiles shook in the tub, the heat rising over him as the excess moisture sought to evaporate off his body. He felt a chill, and shivered.

_"Seriously, is everything all right in there? You sound different. Something happen at the prom?"_

Stiles finally stood, grabbing his towel.

"I'm fine, Dad, just tired. And yeah, hungry."

_"All right, I'll pick up something for you, too."_

Standing in front of the mirror, Stiles braced himself before turning around. He hadn't even told his dad to make sure he got something healthy - that was how far gone his mind was over this damn mark.

The words were still there, raised white against his red heat-burned flesh. Stiles felt something break inside him; he went beyond a panic attack and straight to near catatonia, collapsing to the floor.

Five little words, so strange at first, and then, so very very frightening.

_Do you want the bite?_

 

2.

Months went by, and yet, despite Peter's death, the mark on Stiles' back never faded.

He was there when Scott's presented itself, a simple _Thanks._ It could have been anyone, really. But the first thing Allison had said to him was "Thanks." Thanks for a pen.

The marks weren't always the first thing said though; it was tricky when you got something like _Thanks_ , because that leaves so much of it open to interpretation. Then it was also true that someone else, somewhere, might one day ask Stiles if he wanted to be bitten - but who the hell else would word it the way Peter had, calling it "the bite"? Maybe if he were dying, Derek _might_ ask him, but Stiles kinda doubted it. He'd probably just say he was turning him for his own good and leave it at that.

Marks weren't permanent, and most of them disappeared after a while, even faster if the other person died. The fact that Stiles still had his bothered him greatly.

**********

Alive. He was alive. Sitting right in front of him with a stupid smirk on his face. Freakin' _not dead_.

Peter Hale was alive.

"Stiles." He said the name in greeting as if they'd only just been introduced.

Derek's loft suddenly felt far too small.

"Stiles? You okay?" Scott asked him.

"Peter," Stiles said, pointing an accusatory finger at the former alpha wolf. "You are seeing this right? He's not... some nightmare hallucination?"

"Yeah... sorry, I should've told you."

Stiles whirled on his best friend. "You knew? That he wasn't dead?"

"Technically, I _was_ dead," Peter chimed in. "For a full month, actually. Now I'm back, but without much of my former strength."

"My heart is breaking for you. Really." Stiles glared at him, challenging his very presence.

"Ouch."

"Stiles, is this gonna be a problem?" Scott asked, his voice low. "I know it's Peter, but he's also Derek's beta now. He kind of has to help."

"Hey, I'm here for you, Scott. And getting Boyd and Erica back. And I'm not afraid of Peter Hale."

Scott watched them both for a moment. Stiles missed the looks of concern shared between Scott and Derek; he was too busy sending daggers across the room with his eyes. Peter seemed unaffected by them.

**********

Stiles spent the summer watching over his shoulder for either Peter or one of the Alpha pack to jump him and take him captive. When he had to add the Darach to his list of potential kidnappers, Peter dropped to the bottom of it. And when Jennifer Blake kidnapped his dad, Peter disappeared from the list altogether.

Then the nogitsune happened, and it used the mark on Stiles' back against him, taunting him for its continued presence. It concealed the words from others' eyes though; it wanted its very own private psychological torture device to use against him.

When Peter showed up to help Scott enter Stiles' mind, the nogitsune wasn't happy about that. In fact, if Stiles had to say anything about how the nogitsune felt that day, he'd say it was angry. It knew expulsion was imminent, just by the look in Peter's eyes.

And how had Stiles missed that look before - that circling, piercing look in Peter's eyes - once used to assess Stiles before offering him the bite, now sizing up the thing that had taken Stiles' body for its own. There was something else behind that look, something Peter was trying to hide.

He pronounced Stiles not healthy enough to survive the bite and proposed a different solution. Stiles was barely present in his own mind at that point, but he did remember feeling anxious that Scott might learn the secret about his mark. It had been the only thing Stiles ever kept from Scott: the words of his mark and when they appeared.

There was one thing happened that day that he'd pushed from his mind until the nogitsune nightmare was over. When he'd been spewed out of his own body, Scott and Peter helping him get out of the bandages covering his face, he spotted something on Peter's chest, hidden by his shirt. If he hadn't been leaning over Stiles the way he was, Stiles wouldn't have even noticed it.

But he did notice it, and after the nogitsune was taken out, and everything went back to normal, Stiles sought Peter out. He had to know what the words were.

Had he already said them? Did Peter know it was Stiles who he had the greatest potential to bond with? He'd never really acted like it. Stiles assumed that if Peter knew, at least when he was an Alpha, he'd have bitten Stiles without question. After returning from the dead, well. He would have at least found Stiles, right?

Peter didn't seem too surprised to see Stiles on the other side of the door, and he allowed him entrance into the loft without a word. After the door was shut, he asked, "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"When you were helping Scott separate the nogitsune from my body, I noticed something," Stiles started. He didn't really want to admit he'd scoped a peek down Peter's shirt, but he kind of doubted Peter would care.

Peter folded his arms over his chest, waiting.

 _Now or never,_ Stiles decided. "There was something written on your chest."

Peter smirked. "You came to see my mark?"

"I just wanna know what it said."

"Why?" Peter feigned suspicion, but Stiles could tell he was more curious than anything. Intrigued, even.

"Primarily?" Stiles replied. He shrugged. "I wanna know the words. I wanna make sure I never say them. At least, not to you."

Peter scoffed, turning away toward the table. He shuffled through the papers there, a distraction.

"It's a little too late for that, Stiles."

"Why? What's it say?"

Peter set aside the papers in his hand and faced Stiles again. "It says, 'Help me.'"

"When did I ever say that to you?"

"At the hospital," Peter said. "When we were trying to get Cora out."

Stiles gulped. He remembered that moment, the look in Peter's eyes at those two little words.

"How can you be sure those are my words?"

"What, you think other people ask for my help on a regular basis?"

"Maybe someone else, one day, will mistake you for a good person and ask you for help."

Peter sighed. "They weren't the first words, Stiles." He took out his phone and flipped through the photos on it, few that there were, and showed Stiles a picture of the inside of his arm. He was lying in a hospital bed, the photo clearly having been taken from a second party. "I found this in my medical records. Apparently, one of the doctors noticed those words form on my arm after I'd been in a coma for a while. Thought it was strange enough to document. And the words were still there when I woke up."

Stiles stared at the image. Just like his own mark, these were words not commonly uttered by the general populace. In fact, Stiles would probably wager they'd never been said exactly in this order by anyone else before or since.

_You turn into a giant monster with red eyes and fangs, and you're not the bad guy?_

"Must've been a helluva thing to wake up to," Stiles said softly.

"Red eyes - I knew it meant I would gain alpha power at some point," Peter said, taking his phone back. "At the time I woke, I was too mad with the idea of vengeance that I didn't see anything else in those words. Until you said them."

"So you offered me the bite."

"Yes," Peter confirmed. "Imagine, to go so long without a mark, wondering what must be wrong with you that no one could possibly want to be bound soul-deep with you. I admit, I was almost too curious about you to finish what I'd started."

Stiles scoffed. "I still think it's bullshit."

"Do you?" Peter eyed Stiles up and down. "And where is your mark, Stiles? What words of mine have been etched into your skin?"

Stiles swallowed hard, air getting stuck in his throat when he did. "I don't have a mark."

"Really?"

Stiles held Peter's gaze, all while willing his heart to behave. "Really."

It wasn't like Peter had no reason to believe the lie; some people never got marks. Others got marks and refused them; such marks promptly disappeared. For all Peter knew, the bond they had the potential to share had already been rejected.

That was the thing that scared Stiles, the thing that he was afraid to admit to himself. The mark was still there, _Peter's words_ were still there, because Stiles _wanted_ them there.

"And knowing how you feel about me, you'll probably never get one," Peter said. "You must be thrilled."

Peter turned away from Stiles then, hunched over the table in the center of Derek's loft and propped himself on it. Stiles thought he almost looked close to collapse. Something inside him itched to touch Peter, to reassure him in some way without giving up that he had a mark of Peter's words imprinted in his flesh.

But he didn't care about Peter, did he? He _shouldn't_ care. After all Peter had done, why did he deserve anything from him at all, much less comfort? The words were still there because Stiles wanted to be reminded of the path he didn't take, the darkness he wouldn't allow to consume him.

He headed for the door, taking a last look at Peter before pulling the door shut behind him.

The elevator was still on Derek's floor, waiting for him. He almost had the gate shut, too, before he gave in to second-guessing himself.

What if the mark disappeared? Would he ever get another one? And if he did, would it be Peter again?

Stiles reached over his shoulder, touching the raised skin on his back. He felt oddly relieved that the mark was still there. Whatever soul-deep attraction existed between them had been surfacing for weeks now. He didn't want to believe it, even kept telling himself it was wrong, that soul marks weren't always the best indicator of future relationship success, but even then a small voice in his head popped up to say, _You already know it's him_.

Taking a deep breath, Stiles stepped out of the elevator. He didn't bother to knock this time; if he had to wait any longer to say something about this whole thing, he knew he'd chicken out of it.

As he slid the door open, he saw Peter sitting on the couch, pretending to read. He knew it was pretense because Peter was tapping his finger on the page. The fact he knew this unusual tell of his rattled Stiles for a moment, and he forgot what he'd planned to say.

"What do you want now?" Peter asked. He didn't look up from the book, didn't bother to stand.

"You turn into a monster with red eyes and fangs..." Stiles said, his voice shaking too audibly for his liking. "And you're not the bad guy here." It wasn't a question this time; Peter wasn't the bad guy here, not anymore. Stiles knew that, just as he'd known before that Peter would never actually hurt him, despite the threats that indicated otherwise. And saying it, repeating those words as a mark of his own to show Peter that he knew they were bonded, that he accepted the bond, overwhelmed him. His eyes stung with unshed tears. When Peter looked up at him, shutting the book, with an expression so soft and full of relief at Stiles' words, some of those tears escaped in a stream down his cheek.

Peter placed the book aside and stood. As Peter cautiously crossed the room, Stiles brought the door shut behind him and pulled off his button-down shirt. Then he lifted the tee over his shoulders and turned so Peter could see his back.

Fingertips brushed the mark, tracing the words that lay at a slant between his shoulder blades.

"How long have you had this?" Peter's voice was barely more than a whisper.

Stiles leaned his head against the door. "A long time," he admitted.

"You didn't want me to know."

"I was afraid you'd..." Stiles put his shirt back down. "I don't know what I was afraid you'd do."

"Claim you?" Peter suggested. "That would only be customary. Unless, of course, you claimed me first."

Stiles turned, biting fiercely at his bottom lip.

The thing about marks was, they started out as words spoken to you by another, then ended up as words speaking out to you from skin, begging to be touched. So when Stiles reached out a hand to touch Peter's chest, right where he knew the mark to be, it felt like a compulsion. Then he didn't like Peter's shirt being in the way, so he tugged at the hem, and Peter raised his arms with no more encouragement than Stiles lifting the shirt up to remove it.

Stiles barely had his fingers on skin when he leaned forward to kiss the words, marveling at the hitch of breath from Peter as he got closer. Peter rested his hands on Stiles' shoulders, unsteady under Stiles' attention, but before he could catch a breath Stiles kissed him on the lips. Peter grabbed onto Stiles and pulled him all the way in, hands pawing at the boy under his shirt, reaching for that mark. Stiles stopped them long enough to yank the shirt off and then he was right back in Peter's arms.

Hands running lower, Peter gripped Stiles' legs and hoisted him up. Stiles wrapped his legs around him as Peter carried him toward the bed, falling forward with Stiles underneath him when they reached it.

"So who's... doing the claiming here?" Stiles said when he got a chance to form a coherent thought.

"Does it matter?" Peter said. He started working at Stiles' belt as Stiles kicked off his shoes.

He was naked before Peter was, which, not fair.

Peter flipped Stiles onto his stomach, kissing the low dip of his spine and then licking up it until he reached the mark.

"Guess you're doing the claiming then," Stiles said, following up with a whimper as Peter's teeth pressed against the top of his ear, skimming the skin.

"Is that okay?" Peter asked, actually stopping.

"I don't care, just... do _something_ to me," Stiles begged.

Peter chuckled, huffing air against Stiles' back. He laid down beside him, tugging at his shoulder to turn him over again.

"What are you...?"

"You asked for it," Peter said. He propped himself up on one elbow, using his free hand to caress Stiles' stomach and leaning in to kiss him. His hand moved lower, playing at the brush of hair low on his belly. Stiles was less kissing him in return, more panting against his lips as Peter stroked claws like a breeze over Stiles' shaft.

"Holy..." Stiles gulped down whatever word was coming next. He shivered at the touch, the presence of Peter's claws a reminded of who he was dealing with, and making the whole scenario feel not a little taboo.

Then Peter covered him with his whole hand, pumping him slowly, teasing in the motion, watching with a curious delight as Stiles balled the sheet in one hand, reaching for Peter with the other. Stiles' hand landed on Peter's cheek, and he turned just so he could capture one of the boy's fingers in his mouth.

Stiles was surprised he lasted as long as he did. As he came over Peter's fingers, he squeezed his eyes shut tight, letting all his other senses take over. He could hear his own panting breaths, feel Peter's mouth warm and wet around his finger, and smell his own arousal hanging heavy in the room. He came down from the orgasm, opening his eyes only when he felt Peter's hand leave his body, felt his finger slip from between Peter's lips.

"That was fast," Peter said with a smirk. He reached for his discarded jeans and pulled out a handkerchief from the pocket, wiping Stiles' cum from his hand with it.

"Shut up," Stiles said. "I'm a teenager, so get used to it."

"What if I don't want to?" Peter said, hovering over Stiles, propping one hand on either side of the boy. "What if I want to tease you, make you last for _days_?"

Stiles gulped, suddenly very aware of the territory he'd stepped into. His cock twitched at the thought.

"I could be amenable to that," he finally said.

"Good." Peter stood from the bed, heading towards the bathroom. "I need a shower," he announced, flipping on the light. He glanced back to Stiles and raised both eyebrows. "Coming?"

Stiles sat up, putting his weight on his elbows. "That depends," he said.

Peter squinted, his attention unwavering. "On what?"

"On whether you can hold me up while fucking me against the shower wall."

Peter walked back to the bed and grabbed Stiles' ankles, hauling him to the edge of the bed. Stiles let out a yelp, and before he knew it, Peter had him over his shoulder, carrying him to the bathroom.

"I'll take that as a yes, then," Stiles said, smacking Peter's ass before the werewolf set him down in the shower. He turned the faucet on, and Stiles was hit with a burst of cold water.

"Asshole!" he shouted, reaching for the hot water handle. "See if I let you--"

But then Peter was in there beside him, shutting Stiles up with a kiss, and Stiles felt the warm water hitting his back, heating up the words that made Peter his.


End file.
